Seventeen Otumoetai College Students had their NCEA results in Maori withdrawn last year after the NZQA found a teacher gave the students answers for internal assessments.

Principal Dave Randell says the teacher was naive, rather than deliberately helping students cheat.

The teacher was to be disciplined, but that was changed to a competency assessment, which was successfully completed.

The teacher has since left the college to travel overseas.

NZQA was called in to conduct an audit of the department after the college spotted too many similarities in answers to Maori language exams.

Dave says he was shocked when NZQA found the teacher gave the students answers to the NCEA exams.

'We are one of the schools that has an outstanding report on what we do, and have very few of our credits ever challenged.

'To have virtually a whole subject challenged is quite a shock.”

Five Year 13 students did not gain their level three NCEA qualification, and were not able to re-sit the exam this year as they had left the school.

'We couldn't do anything about it at that stage unfortunately,” says Dave.

'Those who returned to school this year we could certainly help to make sure this year they were given extra support and guidance to help them get through and gain those credits again.”